House Republicans Call on White House to Release Benghazi E-Mails
By JEREMY W. PETERS

House Republicans on Thursday called on the Obama administration to release a new batch of e-mails that they believe will shed more light on how the White House and the State Department responded in the days after the attacks on American facilities in Benghazi, Libya.

Speaker John A. Boehner, in a written statement, made the request, saying, “The truth shouldn’t be hidden from the American people behind a White House firewall.”

His move was the first of many expected by Republicans in the coming days and weeks to try to force the White House to divulge more documents and allow additional witnesses to testify. Republican-led investigations into the siege on Benghazi — which cost four Americans, including the former ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, their lives — have been growing in intensity and scope.

Mr. Boehner’s statement came a day after House Republicans held a politically and emotionally charged hearing in which three American officials testified that the military and the State Department could have done more to prevent the attacks and bungled the response.

The Obama administration has accused Congressional Republicans of using their investigative powers to mount a political witch hunt that is designed to embarrass the president and Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former secretary of state and a leading contender for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, should she decide to run.

Republicans have tried to link Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton to what they say was an effort to conceal the involvement of terrorists in the attacks. White House officials have said that they based their initial response to the attacks — which they said were spurred by an anti-Islamic video — on the intelligence they had at the time.

Mr. Boehner said Thursday at a briefing for reporters that there was still much to uncover about what the administration knew about the intelligence at the time. And he vowed to give his committee chairmen who are leading five separate investigations into Benghazi the leeway to issue subpoenas as they see fit.

“Our committees’ interim report quotes specific e-mails where the White House and State Department insist on removing all references to a terrorist attack to protect the State Department from criticism for providing inadequate security,” he said. “I would call on the president to release these unclassified interagency e-mails so the American people can see them.”

He added, “Frankly, there’s going to be more hearings and more information.”

Speaking during the hearing on Wednesday, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said the administration “has made extraordinary efforts to work with five different Congressional committees investigating what happened before, during and after the Benghazi attacks, including over the past eight months testifying in 10 Congressional hearings, holding 20 staff briefings and providing over 25,000 pages of documents.”

George W. Bush is riding high. A megamillionaire, from the taxpayer-subsidized Texas Rangers company, he makes $150,000 to $200,000 per speech, receives a large presidential pension and support facilities and is about to dedicate the $500 million George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum on April 25.

President Obama will be at the dedication, continuing to legitimize Mr. Bush, as he did from the outset by announcing in 2009 there would be no investigations or prosecutions of the Bush officials for their crimes.

In an interview with the New York Times, Mr. Bush continued to say he has no regrets about his Presidency. “I’m comfortable with what I did,” he said, “I’m comfortable with who I am.” He added, “Much of my presidency was defined by things that you didn’t necessarily want to have happen.”

But he and Dick Cheney made them happen, although Mr. Bush attributed some military events to Providence. One of the “things” he is comfortable with was his criminal, unconstitutional invasion and occupation of Iraq, which took over one million Iraqi lives – children, women and men – created 5 million refugees and committed overall sociocide on that country which posed no threat to the U.S. The carnage continues to this day by a militarized al-Qaeda-in-Iraq that didn’t exist before his invasion.https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/04/20-4

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the state." ~ Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
"Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." ~ Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II

"I know two types of law because I know two types of men, those who are with us and those who are against us." ~ Hermann Goering, 1936

"You are either with us or against us." ~ George W. Bush, November 2001

Well the news continues to leak out over the talking points post-Benghazi. We now know with certainty that they were repeatedly edited and rewritten. Stay tuned.

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By KEVIN ROBILLARD | 5/10/13 9:02 AM EDT Updated: 5/10/13 1:38 PM EDT

Talking points on the attack on the U.S. diplomats in Benghazi given to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice had been extensively revised before she received them by the State Department to remove references to terrorism, according to a report on Friday.

ABC News, which acquired 12 different drafts of the talking points, disclosed that the State Department requested that the CIA scrub references to an Al Qaeda-linked group, Ansar Al-Sharia.

A State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, specifically asked the CIA to delete a paragraph citing prior attacks that could’ve been warning signs because that “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?” according to email reviewed by ABC. The paragraph was struck entirely.

(Also on POLITICO: Crossroads hits Clinton on Benghazi)

The report comes at the end of the week when Republicans’ months-long effort to turn the Sept. 11 attack on Benghazi into a major scandal has been revitalized by a dramatic and emotional four-hour congressional hearing in which a career State Department officer lamented more wasn’t done to save four of his colleagues, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Democrats have suggested both the ABC report and the congressional hearing reveal little new about the attack and its aftermath and are mere excuses for Republicans to continue attacking President Barack Obama and try to damage Hillary Clinton should she considering running for president.

The report also appears to contradict repeated assertions from White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and others that the talking points were a product of the nation’s intelligence agencies and were crafted without political interference.

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community,” Carney told reporters at a White House press briefing in November. “They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened.” Carney said the only outside edits were “stylistic.”

While the first version of the CIA talking points, sent out Friday, Sept. 14, suggested the attack was inspired by protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo earlier that day, it also added: “We do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.”

Then-CIA Director David Petraeus testified last year that he also requested references to Al Qaeda and Ansar Al-Sharia be deleted because he didn’t want to tip off members of the group.

After an initial edit addressed some of Nuland’s concerns, she said the changes “don’t resolve all of my issues or those of my buildings leadership,” according to the email exchange obtained by ABC. A source familiar with the e-mail exchange told ABC that Nuland was worried because the statements went beyond what she was saying in her press briefings at the State Department and because she thought the CIA was attempting to throw the State Department under the bus by suggesting its security warnings were ignored.

Nuland was backed up by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes.

“We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation,” Rhodes wrote. “We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.”

After the meeting Rhodes mentioned, all references to Al Qaeda were deleted.

Rice went on to use the talking points during a round of Sunday show appearances four days after the attack. She and other members of the administration seemed to blame the attacks on a poorly-made and offensive video called “The Innocence of Muslims.” The video had gone viral in the Arab world and led to the storming of the Cairo embassy.

But the video appeared to have little to do with the Benghazi attacks. Rice’s withdrew from the running for Secretary of State after it became clear Republicans would aggressively attack her over the appearances.
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The same source familiar with the e-mails told ABC that Nuland, a career State Department staffer, played no role in preparing Rice for the Sunday appearances.

Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the edits weren’t political.

“I have not seen the emails,” said Cummings, whose committee held a four-hour hearing into Benghazi earlier this week. “But I do know for a fact that our intelligence committee, [the] House Intelligence Committee, has seen every single one of the changes and they have concluded that there was no manipulation for political reasons.”

What is political, Cummings said, is the GOP’s desire to harm Clinton.

This is an “effort to go after Hillary, to harm her before she even makes a decision and then make sure they’ve got some material after she decides to run for president, assuming she does,” Cummings said.

Meanwhile, an outside Republican group is providing some ammunition for Cummings’ argument. American Crossroads released a video attacking Clinton’s handling of the Benghazi attacks on Friday morning. And former Vice President Dick Cheney told House Republicans on Thursday they should subpoena Clinton to testify again, according to Fox News. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a potential Clinton opponent in 2016, attacked the administration in a USA Today op-ed published Thursday.

“The House hearing raises new questions about Secretary Hillary Clinton’s role in the administration’s efforts to portray the attack as the result of a spontaneous demonstration, despite abundant evidence to the contrary and efforts by one of her top lieutenants to intimidate those who were asking the right questions,” Rubio wrote.

The attacks signal a newfound GOP willingness to attack Clinton, who remains immensely popular after four years in a largely nonpartisan role.

House Republican clearly plan to continue pressing the White House on Benghazi, with House Speaker John Boehner calling on the White House to release internal emails from the days following the attacks.

Former White House national security spokesman Tommy Vietor spent his Friday morning on Twitter, decrying the ABC report as a non-story.

(Also on POLITICO: Boehner: Release Benghazi emails)

Some of the details in ABC’s story were first reported by The Weekly Standard. According to an e-mail sent to Rice and obtained by the conservative magazine, the administration staffers who met on Saturday morning shared Nuland’s concerns. CIA Deputy Director Mike Morrell agreed to work with Rhodes and a top State Department staffer to rework the talking points. ABC and The Standard both reported Nuland didn’t attend the meeting.

The Standard reported Petraeus was surprised by a version of the talking points he received the Saturday after the attack and sent an e-mail to the CIA’s legislative affairs chief expressing his frustration at the deleted references to terrorists.

Washington (CNN) -- An e-mail discussion about talking points the Obama administration used to describe the deadly attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, show the White House and State Department were more involved than they first said in the decision to remove an initial CIA assessment that a group with ties to al Qaeda was involved, according to CNN sources with knowledge of the e-mails.

After hearing, Republicans say there's more to story

Doomed ambassador: 'We're under attack'

The talking points have become a political flashpoint in a long-running battle between the administration and Republicans, who say that officials knew the attack last September 11 was a planned terror operation while they were telling the public it was an act of violence that grew out of a demonstration over a video produced in the United States that insulted Islam.

That was the story that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told five days later when she made the rounds of all five Sunday morning television talk shows.

Obama administration officials have long said that Rice was using official talking points that were edited almost exclusively by the intelligence community.

The attack also occurred two months before the November election, in which President Barack Obama's campaign often pointed out that it had "decimated" al Qaeda.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Friday called the controversy a "distraction" from the facts and said the administration had raised the possibility of extremist involvement from the start.

He told reporters the administration was careful with information on Benghazi and was open with the public once facts were established.

An interagency discussion over the talking points to describe the attack just days previous that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans included the White House, State Department, CIA, FBI and Justice Department officials.

A senior administration official told CNN that the e-mails were made available to Congress earlier this year and nothing contradicts what it has said.

"The White House made stylistic edits to the talking points to emphasize that the investigation was ongoing as to who was responsible" and to simplify certain phrasing, the official said.

Carney added that the only edit made by the White House or the State Department was to change the description of the targeted facility to a diplomatic post from consulate.

The e-mail exchange and alterations to the talking points were first reported by ABC and The Weekly Standard and confirmed by CNN appear to contradict that assertion.

A source familiar with the matter said then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland raised concerns over the CIA's first version of the talking points, saying that they went further than what she was allowed to say about the attack during her briefings and that she believed the CIA was attempting to exonerate itself at the State Department's expense by suggesting CIA warnings about the security situation were ignored.

Carney said on Friday there was a "deliberative process" around the talking points involving several agencies. He said the talking points reflected the best assessment of the intelligence community at the time of what occurred in Benghazi, and said there has been an effort since to politicize the tragedy.

"This is an effort to accuse the administration of hiding something we did not hide," he said.

According to a congressional source with knowledge of the e-mails, the CIA's first draft of the talking points was sent to other agencies on the afternoon of Friday, September 14.

They were requested by Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger during a classified briefing by then-CIA director David Petraeus and were intended to be used by members of Congress and administration officials.

According to ABC News and The Weekly Standard, the first draft included a line that said "Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack."

The first version also includes a reference to the terrorist organization Ansar al-Sharia -- an al Qaeda-affiliated group that operates in Libya that took credit for the attack on Facebook but later denied any involvement.

Also in the initial talking points was an acknowledgement that the CIA had produced "numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa'ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya."

The reference also mentioned that "at least five other attacks against foreign interests" had been made since April 2012, according to the news organizations.

In response to the initial assessment, Nuland e-mailed someone named "John," who was directing the interagency process of reviewing the talking points and brought up a number of concerns, according to a congressional source.

"Now I understand that these are for members of Congress. I have serious concerns about all the parts highlighted below," Nuland wrote. "Why do we want the Hill fingering Ansar al-Sharia when we aren't doing that ourselves?"

Nuland continues: "And the penultimate point" -- information about the CIA receiving numerous threats from extremists groups -- "could be abused to beat the State Department for not paying attention to agency warnings — so why do we want to feed that either..."

After Nuland weighed in, the reference to Ansar al-Sharia was scrubbed from the account and "John" replied that the "FBI did not have major concern with the points and only offered a couple of minor points."

Nuland responds at 9:24 p.m. on Friday, writing, "These don't resolve all of my issues or those of my building's leadership."

Just a minute after Nuland's e-mail, Jake Sullivan, then a policy adviser for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, writes the group.

"I spoke with Tommy," Sullivan writes, referring to then-National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor. "We'll work this through in the morning. Get comments back."

Less than 10 minutes later, Deputy National Security Council Adviser Ben Rhodes e-mailed the group stating that he didn't want anything in the talking points that would undermine the investigation and directs the matter to a Saturday meeting at the White House.

According to multiple sources, the interagency group met Saturday morning, and according to a congressional source, the paragraph acknowledging that the CIA had warned about "the threat of extremists linked to al Qaeda and Benghazi" in preceding months was removed from the talking points after that meeting.

Nuland after the meeting e-mailed that she had concerns and "didn't want to prejudice the investigation."

A subsequent e-mail from "John" to Nuland said, "The FBI did not have major concerns with the points and offered only a few minor suggestions."

After the Saturday meeting, a separate e-mail was directed to Rice, telling her that the first draft of the talking points seemed unsuitable based on the discussion at the White House meeting, the unknown author of the e-mail wrote, "because they implied the CIA warned about a specific attack."

The e-mail continues: "I spoke with Jake immediately after the (the White House meeting) and noted that you are doing the Sunday morning shows and need to be aware of the final posture that these points took."

Washington (CNN) -- An e-mail discussion about talking points the Obama administration used to describe the deadly attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, show the White House and State Department were more involved than they first said in the decision to remove an initial CIA assessment that a group with ties to al Qaeda was involved, according to CNN sources with knowledge of the e-mails.

After hearing, Republicans say there's more to story

Doomed ambassador: 'We're under attack'

The talking points have become a political flashpoint in a long-running battle between the administration and Republicans, who say that officials knew the attack last September 11 was a planned terror operation while they were telling the public it was an act of violence that grew out of a demonstration over a video produced in the United States that insulted Islam.

That was the story that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told five days later when she made the rounds of all five Sunday morning television talk shows.

Obama administration officials have long said that Rice was using official talking points that were edited almost exclusively by the intelligence community.

The attack also occurred two months before the November election, in which President Barack Obama's campaign often pointed out that it had "decimated" al Qaeda.

White House spokesman Jay Carney on Friday called the controversy a "distraction" from the facts and said the administration had raised the possibility of extremist involvement from the start.

He told reporters the administration was careful with information on Benghazi and was open with the public once facts were established.

An interagency discussion over the talking points to describe the attack just days previous that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans included the White House, State Department, CIA, FBI and Justice Department officials.

A senior administration official told CNN that the e-mails were made available to Congress earlier this year and nothing contradicts what it has said.

"The White House made stylistic edits to the talking points to emphasize that the investigation was ongoing as to who was responsible" and to simplify certain phrasing, the official said.

Carney added that the only edit made by the White House or the State Department was to change the description of the targeted facility to a diplomatic post from consulate.

The e-mail exchange and alterations to the talking points were first reported by ABC and The Weekly Standard and confirmed by CNN appear to contradict that assertion.

A source familiar with the matter said then-State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland raised concerns over the CIA's first version of the talking points, saying that they went further than what she was allowed to say about the attack during her briefings and that she believed the CIA was attempting to exonerate itself at the State Department's expense by suggesting CIA warnings about the security situation were ignored.

Carney said on Friday there was a "deliberative process" around the talking points involving several agencies. He said the talking points reflected the best assessment of the intelligence community at the time of what occurred in Benghazi, and said there has been an effort since to politicize the tragedy.

"This is an effort to accuse the administration of hiding something we did not hide," he said.

According to a congressional source with knowledge of the e-mails, the CIA's first draft of the talking points was sent to other agencies on the afternoon of Friday, September 14.

They were requested by Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger during a classified briefing by then-CIA director David Petraeus and were intended to be used by members of Congress and administration officials.

According to ABC News and The Weekly Standard, the first draft included a line that said "Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa'ida participated in the attack."

The first version also includes a reference to the terrorist organization Ansar al-Sharia -- an al Qaeda-affiliated group that operates in Libya that took credit for the attack on Facebook but later denied any involvement.

Also in the initial talking points was an acknowledgement that the CIA had produced "numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa'ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya."

The reference also mentioned that "at least five other attacks against foreign interests" had been made since April 2012, according to the news organizations.

In response to the initial assessment, Nuland e-mailed someone named "John," who was directing the interagency process of reviewing the talking points and brought up a number of concerns, according to a congressional source.

"Now I understand that these are for members of Congress. I have serious concerns about all the parts highlighted below," Nuland wrote. "Why do we want the Hill fingering Ansar al-Sharia when we aren't doing that ourselves?"

Nuland continues: "And the penultimate point" -- information about the CIA receiving numerous threats from extremists groups -- "could be abused to beat the State Department for not paying attention to agency warnings — so why do we want to feed that either..."

After Nuland weighed in, the reference to Ansar al-Sharia was scrubbed from the account and "John" replied that the "FBI did not have major concern with the points and only offered a couple of minor points."

Nuland responds at 9:24 p.m. on Friday, writing, "These don't resolve all of my issues or those of my building's leadership."

Just a minute after Nuland's e-mail, Jake Sullivan, then a policy adviser for then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, writes the group.

"I spoke with Tommy," Sullivan writes, referring to then-National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor. "We'll work this through in the morning. Get comments back."

Less than 10 minutes later, Deputy National Security Council Adviser Ben Rhodes e-mailed the group stating that he didn't want anything in the talking points that would undermine the investigation and directs the matter to a Saturday meeting at the White House.

According to multiple sources, the interagency group met Saturday morning, and according to a congressional source, the paragraph acknowledging that the CIA had warned about "the threat of extremists linked to al Qaeda and Benghazi" in preceding months was removed from the talking points after that meeting.

Nuland after the meeting e-mailed that she had concerns and "didn't want to prejudice the investigation."

A subsequent e-mail from "John" to Nuland said, "The FBI did not have major concerns with the points and offered only a few minor suggestions."

After the Saturday meeting, a separate e-mail was directed to Rice, telling her that the first draft of the talking points seemed unsuitable based on the discussion at the White House meeting, the unknown author of the e-mail wrote, "because they implied the CIA warned about a specific attack."

The e-mail continues: "I spoke with Jake immediately after the (the White House meeting) and noted that you are doing the Sunday morning shows and need to be aware of the final posture that these points took."

The White House stepped past the accuracy of the CIA report in lieu of the YouTube video excuse for the attack. Now? NOT A SKERRIT OF TALK ABOUT IT BEING THE VIDEO. This site's Left side fell all over themselves agreeing it was that video. Where'd all that go?

This scandal WILL play itself out...and there will be much egg-on-face (ostrich egg) over defending the administration's pre-election decision to lie to The People.

to really appreciate the mandacity of the lie about the video causing the death of the ambassador and former navy seals recall that hillary spoke to the families of the dead as the bodies were brought home and knowing it was a lie, pledged to find who made the video and punish him.